When you see a sign in a store proclaiming, “On Sale: 50% Off!”, you can almost bet that they’ve raised the original price first. Instead of paying $12, you’re paying $20 minus half-off and getting it for $10. So okay, you’ve saved two bucks, but it’s hardly “50% Off.”
Lawsuits work the same way: When you want $100,000 in settlement, you ask for $1 million and let the other side think they’re getting away with murder when you get $150,000. If you go in asking for an honest $100,000, you’ll be lucky to get a tenth of it.
Government, sadly, works the same way, especially with the Greedy Obstructionist Putzes in charge. If you present an honest budget, they’ll hack away everything that they can; if you present a fair request, they’ll demand ten times as much back in favors for their One-Percenter owners… er, “constituents.”
It’s been said that Bernie Sanders is “asking too much,” that his ideas and proposals are “impossible dreams” that will never come to fruition. Hillary Clinton is seen as having a more “moderate and balanced” approach, and therefore is “more electable.” The simple truth is that bipartisanship sailed (and sank) decades ago. Trying to reason with unreasonable people is worse than trying to teach the elephant to dance; the pecksniffian pachyderm won’t even bother to listen. Their refusal to go by their own rules (“The Constitution is sacred!”) and not put another justice on the Supreme Court is one of a myriad examples of non-compromise, non-cooperation, and clinching proof that they didn’t read the “for the people” clause of their holy text.
Clinton will have good intentions and moderate approaches, all of which (as consensus-seeking Presidents from Carter forward have discovered) will be mocked, blocked, and sent home packing. Sanders will go in fighting, leading, and demanding the “impossible.” Worse (for Republicans), he will show that it is not impossible, that it could be done, and that all who oppose it are weakening rather than strengthening the country. “The Bernmeister” will provide the best solution by invoking the “devil’s definition” of compromise — everyone will be equally dissatisfied with the outcome. We won’t get all we asked for (although we’ll at least get something good for a change), and the obstructionists will have failed to bring the country to full oligarchic ruin (for now, at least).
In the year I was born, there were only 48 states in the Union; in the month I was born, NASA was barely older than I. In ten short years, we went to the moon… because we dreamed. Since then, we have continued to dream, to fight, to bring this country to its fullest potential, not because of but in spite of those who have tried so very hard to obstruct, divide, and conquer us. We, the People, still dare to dream. To dream, we must dream boldly. To go forward, we must attempt the “impossible,” work steadily and tirelessly at our task, until we turn to look behind us and realize that, by damn, we actually made it work.